Why don't some people enjoy music?

James - Anhedonia is defined as an inability to experience joy or pleasure. It occurs in roughly 70% of people with a major depressive disorder. However, to give us a sense of what's going on specifically with your experience with music, I'm going to need some help, and that's why I've put in a call to Malinda McPherson, Assistant Professor at Purdue University's Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences.

Malinda - To classify a person as having musical anhedonia, and not a more general form of anhedonia, that person must respond positively to rewarding stimuli like laughter, money, visual art, television, and other types of positive things. But they just don't respond positively to music. There are generally considered to be two types of musical anhedonia. One is acquired following some neural damage or trauma, and the other is present without any kind of neurological damage. The first type can sometimes go away as the brain damage heals, but the other type musical anhedonia, without brain damage, unfortunately, does not have a known cure. But there's also nothing wrong with a person with musical anhedonia. There's simply a spectrum of responses to music. Some people get chills every time they hear music, and others only get pleasurable responses to music sometimes. People with musical anhedonia fall on one extreme of the spectrum.

James - So it's not that they can't identify how a certain piece of music is intended to make them feel, whether that be sadness, joy, tension, etc.. This inability to process the music is known as amusia. It's just that in the case of specific musical anhedonia music doesn't bring them enjoyment. Thanks, Malinda, for your help. I also want to pick out this comment from Alan on our forum. Under the question he writes,

'If you aren't turned on by listening to music, perhaps don't take a formal route involving theory, keyboards and exams, but find a beginner's brass band where you learn to follow the dots and they have instruments you can borrow or rent. You get all the fun of a team sport, especially the pub session afterwards, and you only need to use three fingers. Or take up folk dancing whether music has immediate meaning and relevance. Plus the pub session afterwards where you meet the band.'

Well, we know where we can look for Alan if we ever need to find him. But on a more serious note, he's right to bring the conversation back to why we think most people do derive pleasure from music - as a vehicle for socialising. A tool to communicate emotions, and to encourage us to perhaps dance together even if there's no cure for your specific musical anhedonia, Carl, you can still benefit perhaps from the positive social function it inspires.